Arugula and Goat Cheese Ravioli

The glass on the right is prosecco, if you were wondering.

Since it was Saturday, and we didn't have much else to do, we thought we'd do a more elaborate recipe. So, ravioli. This recipe come from Gourmet, and calls for handmade ravioli filled with a blend of arugula and goat cheese. This was our first time making handmade pasta of any sort, and it was an experience.

It can probably be summed up by saying that we started cooking around 4 in the afternoon, and started eating around 8:30, and almost all of that was active time. Now, that's a bit misleading, since we discovered around 5 that we didn't have enough arugula (we needed a pound!), and so I did things around the kitchen like fill ingredient bowls and wash dishes while my wife went to the store to get more Arugula. If that hadn't happened, we still would have spent a lot of time cooking, but not quite as much as we did.

And making ravioli by hand is hard! I kinda wish I had a pasta machine now. I've never been much good at rolling out dough, even if I'm making something like pizza where it doesn't need to be particularly thin. So here, where it wanted to be really thin, I wasn't much good. But I was apparently good enough! While the ravioli was not the best ever, it was pretty good. The flavor was awesome; I can tell why people swear by homemade pasta. But it was a bit chewy. Not horribly chewy, but it could have been better. The filling was quite good. It would have been better if we had been able to de-stalk the arugula, but that would have required far more time than it was worth. Overall, a worthwhile way to spend an afternoon, if not the best dish we've ever had.